Phrasing Nations

Since early history, most nations have faced a serious struggle for their existence and survival. Despite thousands of years of wars and conflicts, to this day, definitions about territories and questions about existence and identity still dominate the agenda of most nations.

The project is about a natural and a basic need. It is about the wish of our nations to justify their existence. This project is about understanding what it means to establish and define a ‘Nation’. According to my research, a nation can be a philosophy, a concept, a brand, a vision, a heroine, a people, a complex heritage, a PR agency, a top web domain name, an educational institute, a powerful entity, a political agenda, or just a story, an interesting myth, that contains words and phrases.

The project seeks to understand the crucial part that words, phrases and terminology play, as basic, yet major, visual forms of communication in the existence of nations. The links between verbal language and national existence through branding methods underlies my research. Whilst the designed and edited book which I produced as my final outcome summarises the contextual and visual evidence which formed part of my research.

This project is about us. The people of nations who put their fears and desires into words and definitions. Language is not just a tool of communication.
Apparently, it is also a tool for establishing facts and creating reality. It determines the fate of people, our fate, no matter where we live.